Recent Changes

The past few weeks have been very busy for me and I haven't been keeping up with my Wednesday night workouts as I had hoped to. I did get in a few short workouts last week including a Tabata workout on the erg, consisting of 20 seconds of sprinting and 10 seconds of rest, repeated a total of 8 times. It's a killer 4 minute workout. I also did a kettlebell version of the Dumbbell Bear - Every minute, on the minute for 20 minutes do 5 reps of deadlifts, 5 cleans, 5 thrusters, then rest for however much time you have left- that I did during a spare 10 minutes one morning. Good stuff.

Recently, my time has been spent apartment hunting and viewing. It's as exhausting as a job interview and the wait is just as stressful. My GF and I made a list of 'wants' and 'needs' that we were looking for in a new place and trying to find something that met most of our needs. We've been fortunate to have most of our utilities paid (except phone/internet and cable), have laundry facilities in the unit, as well as an underground parking spot. We new there would be a little give and take and that we'd have to make a few sacrifices - paying utilities, losing a secured parking spot, etc. A few weeks ago we looked at an English Basement around Eastern Market. There were a few other people looking at it at the same time, but we wanted to beat them to the punch and submitted an application on the spot. We spent the rest of the morning wandering around Eastern Market and bought some tapestry from Zimbabwe for good luck, hoping to hang it in the new place. A few hours later we got a call they the owners decided on someone else for the English Basement, so a trip to REI to spend my 20% off and dividend check on a rain jacket made me feel a little better.

The sulking stopped the next morning when we went to look at another English Basement in the same area. The place was unbelievable and 100 times better than the one from Saturday. We brought the dog and he proceeded to claim the small bushes in the backyard as 'mine' with each marking. The door to the EB was open and he pranced in and out while we looked around. We stayed there close to an hour while on this 'interview' and kept our fingers crossed as we emailed them our application and waited for the credit check to go through. If it could have, my email would've shouted "ENOUGH ALREADY!" as I refreshed it as often as I take a breath, if not more often, in anticipation of the confirmation email. It finally came at the end of last week when I finally put down my phone and declared that I wouldn't check my email until I got into the office. Commute over, I had a couple missed calls and text messages from my GF asking if I had checked my email yet. That damn pot was waiting to boil once I finally turned away from it.

So now is the fun part of packing and cleaning and purging. I don't want to move stuff that I'm going to end up getting rid of, so now is the time to recycle, Freecycle, or sell things I don't use or haven't been using and probably won't use no matter how many times I say "But I NEED THAT!!"

Other recent changes include the purchase of a new Honda CR-V. My girlfriend traded in her Honda Civic and we spent a glorious 4.5 hours in the dealership on her birthday while our salesman repeatedly said "let me go see if we can do that" and got up and walked over to another desk. He was probably checking on college basketball scores. We should've made a drinking game out of it. We didn't get as much for her car as she had wanted (thanks, Carmax, for not telling her it was in an accident and/or had work done!), but payments are lower than what she's currently paying, and I'll be able to help with maintenance and repairs. Thankfully the new place doesn't have underground parking with a pole on the driver side that will REPEATEDLY attack the driver side mirror; cracking and/or ripping it from the car. That darn Civic was a MAGNET for that pole! I'm sure bricks in the windshield will now be the norm.

Can't wait!!

At least it's an automatic and I won't have a problem driving it as terrified as I was of her manual car. I just wish, instead of a big bow, we could've driven it off the lot wrapped in bubble wrap - don't you DARE get too close to my car!!

No - I'm not a Redskins fan. Yes - I know that's a horrible parking job. I just pulled in near my GF's old car so we could transfer a few things




Life is good